Weirdo
by piratesmiley
Summary: "Four inches, Jesse! Four." "Wow. Does this mean you'll be taller than a wittle bunny wabbit?" Beca/Jesse oneshot.


She's twenty minutes late for movication, but he pretends not to be worried. He knows the most likely reason, anyway. When she finally makes it, his suspicions are confirmed.

She looks miserable.

Hair disheveled, bags under her eyes, her delicate gait stressed and pained. Yeah, he was right about the reason.

It's the shoes.

Aubrey is crazy, that much he has gathered from the several thousand times Beca has complained about Bellas rehearsals. Apparently this week it's Aubrey's mission to make sure that every one of the Bellas can function perfectly in four-inch heels.

"_Four inches_, Jesse! _Four_," she had stressed while she replaced an old Sonic Youth EP.

"Wow. Does this mean you'll be taller than a wittle bunny wabbit?"

She pretended to be annoyed with him. "This is serious."

"Is it, though?"

She rolled her eyes.

It wasn't just the footwear atrocity that was wearing her out ("Four _fucking_ inches. I could impale someone with four inches." "That's what she said?"), but a whole host of other tiny fires that happened to be set all at once. Apparently, some small part of the idiot side of Beca had actually started caring about school ("Fuck you, annotated bibliography."); the first time he had caught her keyboard smashing with her forehead he had been worried, but the rest of the times he was just amused by her melodrama. In addition, Luke had been working them overtime at the station ever since one of the frats decided that ransacking the CDs stacks to take their Dave Matthews Band away ("Good riddance!") without any consideration for their months of careful alphabetization was a hilarious pledge prank. The damage was so disturbing that their only escape was to take each album as though it was the only one that was misplaced, highlighting the curiousness of the situation ("Why, Mr. Swanson, would you look at that! It seems someone has misplaced this Fleetwood Mac album in the B section." "But Miss Mitchell, that would make them Bleetwood Mac." And then they'd pretend to laugh while contemplating mercy-killing each other). Throw in a full rehearsal schedule in anticipation of a string of gigs and a couple nights of drunken shenanigans that she was pulled into when Fat Amy went on her semi-annual bender, and it was fairly understandable why Beca was so exhausted.

And he understands. He is a very understanding person. And so at great personal sacrifice, he decides to let her off the hook for movication.

It doesn't quite come out right, though.

"You look like shit."

If she is hurt by his blurted statement, she's too tired to pull a face or zing a comeback. Instead, she kicks off the offending stilettos and crawls across his bed to sit next to him, in Movie Watching Formation B. This is their standard position, sitting against the wall on his bed, shoulder to shoulder, too close to look each other in the eyes, so as to not repeat the undiscussed Breakfast Club fiasco (also known as Movie Watching Formation A, for Almost Amazing but ultimately Awkward).

"Movication, go," she says, sounding miserable, although slightly less miserable than she usually does when on her feet.

"You know we don't have to do this, if you want to sleep."

"And you know I'll sleep either way, so let's just tick another one off your endless list." He thinks it was meant to be a jab, but it just comes off as semi-affectionate.

"Seriously, you should just go to bed," he says.

"What's the movie?"

"Grease."

"So you'll sing the whole time?"

"It's _Grease_, duh."

"Perfect." He doesn't know what that means, but he thinks he hears her smile. Before he can ask, he feels her head settle into his shoulder.

_This is new._ And he doesn't really know what to do. _Don't jinx it_.

Except he really doesn't know what to do, because any little joy he takes in her contact will most likely result in her taking it away. He goes for the opposite approach, reverse psychology. "Seriously, go to bed."

She ignores it. "Grease Lightning, yeah," she mumbles.

"I could just carry you home," he offers, only half-joking.

Voice swollen with sleep, she replies, "'Tell me about it, _stud_.'"

He turns his head in shock, but carefully enough not to uproot her from her spot on his shoulder. "Wait, have you seen this one? We don't even have to watch it!"

Eyes closed already, she punches his arm. He takes the hint. "Ow. But we'll watch it anyway. Besides, it's perfection."

Smiling, he presses play.

* * *

As Sandy and Danny ride off into the sunset, he bumps her arm with his.

"Aca-bed time, Becs."

"Aca-shut it, Jess." She settles into the crook of his neck a little more, and after a moment he can feel her breath steady on his skin. His brain resets at the sensation; he closes his eyes and let himself enjoy her closeness for a moment. He loves being her friend (her _best_ friend, as she had begrudgingly admitted). But sometimes he wonders how much of that was because he loves her. And he does love her. It hadn't taken long. She doesn't fancy herself _lovable_ in any sense of the word. But unconsciously, she'd made him. The more she lets him in, the more she drops her tough-girl front and is just her weirdo self, the more he is enveloped by loving her. She is quicksand and he is pleasantly sunk.

"Want me to take you home?" he murmurs, voice fading in and out of a whisper.

She shakes her head no, just enough for him to understand, still mostly asleep. He knows what she wants.

Gently, he picks her up off his shoulder (his skin stings where hers used to be) and lays her down on the bed. He pulls off his jeans, the cool air hitting the skin his boxers didn't cover. Gently, he slipped his blankets out from under her and gets under them with her.

Unconsciously, or maybe consciously, he can barely tell anymore, she moves closer to him. He clicks off the light. He tries to be just Jesse, just her friend (_her_ _best friend_) but she makes it impossible, pulling his arms around her to settle in.

_Are you sure?_ He wants to ask her, but before he can (and she's been doing it more and more recently) she answers his unspoken question. "Stop thinking, Jess. Plenty of time to regret this in the morning."

He won't regret it, though. And he is damn near sure that she won't really regret it either. But for now, he does stop thinking. For now, he just holds her close.


End file.
